Deferred Dreams

On Monday this week of my literature class, every person had to recite a poem assigned to us from our text. The theme of all the poems was conformity and rebellion. We each read a poem in the order it was organized from the book. Therefore, we saw the gradual change each poet went through during this time of conformity and rebellion.

There was this one black poet, Langston Hughes, whose poem was called "I, too" (1926). He wrote of how someday he would eat at the table instead of in the kitchen, of how he was also American even though he is black. That Americans should not be based on skin color. But this first poem of his seemed patient. That he had hopes of being able to eat on the table someday soon.

Later, he wrote another poem "Harlem" in 1951. This poem was written by Hughes 25 years later. His persona changed. In this poem, he wrote of deferred dreams. The poem asks many questions about what happens to these deferred dreams. He seems angry and ends with the last line, "Or does it explode?" His "explode" remark refers to a revolution that had been started by the blacks in this time period. Because twenty-five years later, Langston Hughes still did not have a seat at the table nor was he counted as an American.